DUBAI: Saudi police released without charge a woman who was filmed in a miniskirt at a historic site in the ultraconservative kingdom, the government said on Wednesday.

The ministry of information said police had released the woman on Tuesday night and the prosecutor had closed the case.

Police said on Tuesday they were questioning the woman after she appeared in a series of videos, initially posted to messaging app Snapchat, wearing a crop top and a high-waisted miniskirt.

The ministry said in a statement that the woman had confessed to walking through the site in a skirt with her hair uncovered but that the footage had been uploaded without her knowledge.

The videos sparked heated debate among social media users in the region and beyond on questions of gender and rights in the kingdom.

Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2017